Political funding through most of those building project is catching up with the left. It took almost twenty years to the right to create the model of the funding pump, but the left raise the rates in a few years. In 1985 the Communist Party rate was about 2% of the building cost (schools mostly) and was considered high (read much too much)... Several years later it would go to 4% for the PS and RPR. This mess was stopped by a law on party funding... And a general amnesty ! To start up again, this time fully illegal, through big engineering firms that were sharing the loot through architectural contests... The two major firms (one left, one right) are in prison today! Of course... The beat goes on...! (see the latest trial on Ile de France).
This mess was stopped by a law on party funding... And a general amnesty ! To start up again, this time fully illegal, through big engineering firms that were sharing the loot through architectural contests... The two major firms (one left, one right) are in prison today! Of course... The beat goes on...! (see the latest trial on Ile de France).
Not that it doesn't make sense, but you cover a lot of ground in your comment and some things are more insinuated than explicitly stated. guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
In Paris intra-muros, getting a HLM was way faster if you had a RPR party card...
About the fines imposed on commune with low HLM rates, it should be noted that Neuilly, the extremely wealthy suburb where Sarkozy was mayor, has 3% of its housing as HLM, whereas the law imposes 20% ... Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
In that era, the major contractors would negotiate between themselves on who would get the contract, the others, bidding much too high or much too low... Then on the next project they would take turns. In those "false" bidding. That would allow for the "true" price to be just 2% over what was anticipated...
Or, when they had to keep the price on the level, there would be some good reasons to find those 2% on the building design, often without the architect knowing (thus the use of the engineering firm whom by law must team with the architect on such public projects)!
2% on a school would mean, for example, to shift aluminium window frames to PVC ones... Or to replace false brick on concrete by grout!
Each part of that comment, of course, could be covered in a diary, but my intention here, was more to give a feedback of the general attitude in time that led to the present situation... Those big trials of those firms were as hot a few years ago then the Fitzgerald's indictments are today in US.
It was less true in rural areas, but worked quite well in the suburbs of big cities. It is not the cause of the diminution of HLM, but points to a very sick way of having a school or an HLM done in a given district. (today it's more about the "roundabouts")!
Why did the social housing dip in the Mitterand's years, that still remain incomprehensible to me.
In those years I worked on a project (government funded) on public spaces in one of those "burning" districts. Because of EU funding on schools for music, the "team" (mayor, ministry of equipment, ministry of cities, city hall urbanists) decided for a design of one of those schools... Just in the middle of most gangs boundaries...(those kids wanted a basketball arena, that's what they told me)! I asked what sort of music school would it be... A classical one with violins, trumpets, and such.. Behind bars, because... You know, those instruments have a price...! I replied they should invite me for the burning after the inauguration... And it did burn indeed ! That school, (about 2 million Francs) was not what was needed there... But because they had to show that work was being done on this city, and with somebody's else money, they just did it !
This sort of stupidity has been going along for years... And deep rooted projects were not funded, because of no direct political feedback, or too costly !
In some rare cases some good work has been done and could be followed today... "What can I do, What can I write, Against the fall of Night". A.E. Housman
